The Top Marks Start This Monday on the Sound

Kiwi broadcasting legends The Top
Marks, Mark Kennedy and Mark Staufer ‘get the band back
together’ this coming Monday. From 6am they will host The
Kennedy & Staufer Breakfast Show weekdays on The
Sound.

The Breakfast Radio team that stormed the Auckland
airwaves in the late 80s are looking forward to spending
time in the studio with each other again, playing the
greatest music ever made and getting to know The Sound
listeners.

Vaughan Hobbs, Programme Director for The
Sound, says Kennedy and Staufer are the voice of a
generation, and a perfect fit for the station that’s #1
with men in the 40-59 demographic.*

“This
is a Breakfast Show designed for The Sound audience, many of
whom grew up listening to The Top Marks,” he says. “It
will feature everything The Sound stands for; playing the
greatest music ever made, with no silly games, gimmicks or
B.S - presented by two legendary broadcasters. I’m
delighted we’ve persuaded Kennedy and Staufer to get back
into the studio.”

Launched on New Year’s Day in 2012,
The Sound’s programming philosophy of focussing on the
music loved by 40-59 year-olds quickly struck a chord with
Kiwis. Since then the station has gone from strength to
strength. In 2013, The Sound was named Network Station of
the Year at the NZ Radio Awards. In the most recent Radio
Survey, The Sound was the #1 station in its target
demographic (men aged 40-59).*

Mark
Kennedy's first radio job was midnight to dawn
announcer at Radio Windy in Wellington. Working his way up
and down the dial culminated in the creation and launch of
what rapidly became the #1 rating breakfast duo known as The
Top Marks, first on Triple M 89FM in Auckland, then KZFM
Melbourne and K-ROCK Geelong. Mark also launched VoiceWorks,
New Zealand's first voiceover agency, representing actors
and announcers in Australasia. Mark returned to his radio
roots when he joined Sydney's WSFM, initially as
presenter/producer of the Breakfast Show (Summer Edition)
leading on to presenter/producer of Weekend Breakfast where
he consistently rated #1 in the target 25-54 demographic.
Switching to talk radio in 2006, Mark held various positions
at 2GB including executive producer and talk host, later
moving to 2UE as a regular on New Day Australia,
broadcasting on the Fairfax Radio Network to three states
and both territories.

Mark Staufer began
his journalism career in radio, first at talk-back AM
station Radio Pacific, then at Radio Hauraki. When he was
22, he was hired as a journalist by Auckland’s 89FM and
subsequently promoted to News Director. There he made the
switch into on-air announcing as part of the successful
breakfast show duo, The Top Marks, with co-host Mark Kennedy
which quickly went to the top of the ratings. Staufer
eventually moved into television as a writer, producer and
on-camera reporter for TVNZ’s Newsnight before moving to
Sydney where he worked as a director/producer at the Foxtel
network and as a presenter on Channel 10’s
Sex/Life. His work in television took him to London,
where he became Head of Production at Universal Studios
Networks in London, with overall creative control of Sci-Fi
UK and movie channel The Studio. Staufer has been away from
New Zealand for 25 years, living in Australia, the UK,
Europe and most recently Los Angeles where he's been working
on film projects with Oscar winner Russell Crowe. He's also
been working on two books, one of which is due to be
published next
year

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